What We're Watching

REVIEW
Even superheroes can be complete *?£@%@s sometimes.

Sure, Spiderman was often a cocky twerp and Batman was a sourpuss, but they earned that grudging respect you give to the TV guy who smelled of stale cat but did a great job getting your dish working.

Alan Moore's Watchmen was a legendary comic book because it didn't shy away from the fact that - in a world where cops can commit murder, priests can abuse children and politicians can raze communities to the ground - some of our heroes can hurt us.

The comic itself centred on a dystopian world in which Nixon is still president and someone is taking out masked vigilantes. The tale was dense and cynical, and apparently impossible to film.

While Moore himself washed his hands of the movie, director and Watchmen fan Zack Snyder has done better than expected.

It's a little long at over two hours forty, and it's no picnic for those that haven't read the comic. But it's still an amazingly visual, gritty adventure with snarling performances from ink blot-faced loon Jackie Earle Haley and brutal enforcer Jeffrey Dean Morgan.